Eli, איך וויל ביי אייך פרעגן א קשיא וועגן יידישע דיאלעקטן. What dialect of Yiddish did you grow up using in B'nei B'rak? Is it difficult for you to use YIVO Yiddish? Which dialect do you use in your private life? Which dialect does Yiddish League for Yiddish promote? Everyone learning Yiddish in academic or non-religious settings was learning YIVO Yiddish. Today many argue that it is the New York Hungarian Hasidim who are continuing Yiddish as an everyday spoken Yiddish and we should speak as they do. This is seen in Duolingo. The Yiddish socialists with their day schools and summer camps have not continued. The new generations of many religious Jews, historically Litvak Yiddish speaking, do not continue with Yiddish as an everyday language. So it seems that YIVO Yiddish is in an ivory tower, divorced from everyday life. My little bit of Yiddish was picked up from my Lithuanian born grandparents so YIVO Yiddish sounds familiar and correct to me. I admit that Satmar Yiddish sounds strange but I am wondering if I should make an effort to know that dialect. The internet now has so many examples of Satmar Yiddish. Many people say that it is no big deal switching dialects, just some vowel shifts. But the whole rhythm is often different, it is almost another language. I felt vindicated when I read "In Brooklyn, Ehrlich was separated from his Hasidic neighbors by his northerly Hasidic heritage (from the Karlin-Stolin group)... People also had a hard time understanding his different Yiddish dialect, which led to the first publications of his work: Pamphlets printed so that audiences-often children-could follow along to his cassettes."
Oh! It takes a lot of text to answer everything. I'll try to keep it short (maybe I'll make a chapter about it sometime in the future). Among the Hassidim, they have one large dialect called Hasidic Yiddish which is different from all historical dialects as well as from Yivo Yiddish, with different grammar, different vocabulary, and different syntax. And within the great dialect "Hasidic Yiddish" there are many sub-dialects, usually it is divided according to belonging to Hasidic communities and not by geographical area. Besides, there is also the matter of the accent that this is an unrelated issue and it is indeed affected by the geographical area. This is an important topic! Because many people and researchers are not precise: 1. Global Hasidic Yiddish is mainly the syntax, the vocabulary, the grammar, and then there are slight differences in all areas according to communities, and the accent is not the main division!. 2. Satmer represent nothing but their own sub-dialect. I grew up as a child with 3 main dialects: Hassidic-Lithuanian (I was in the Karlin-Stolin community and my father spoke it). Hasidic-Romanian/Hungarian-Israeli, (my mother and her family belong to the Vizhnitz community). And I studied at a school and yeshiva from Galicia: Bobov, Belz. I had friends who spoke different types, so I speak at least 4 types of Yiddish at a native level. And so automatically, without noticing, I switch to the dialect that the speaker in front of me speaks to me. If the speaker is inconsistent or a new learner who does not have a clear dialect. So I zigzag between the dialects. The most dominant dialect for me is my mother's, in this dialect I dream and think and of course I also have an Israeli accent even though I only started to understand modern Hebrew at about the age of 9 and speak fluently at the age of 11 maybe. And before that I studied Ashkenazi Hebrew and Aramaic. I would like to correct a common mistake you cite: the Hasidic community does not speak Hungarian Yiddish! There are many groups including Romanians, Russians and more, and in any case even those coming from Hungary are all subject to the rules of the Hasidic Yiddish dialect that was created after the Holocaust, and not to the Yiddish that was spoken in historical Hungary. Another common misconception is that there is a 'correct' form of speech according to Yivo, this is not true as far as I know. All the rules created by them in the 1930s are only for writing and not for speaking. They believed that everyone could speak according to their own dialect but everyone should write uniformly according to the rules. These are also the rules and Yiddish that the League for Yiddish promotes. And so the story with Duolingo is also not true, because Duolingo adopted all the writing rules according to Yivo and only sound recordings of the words and sentences are according to the sub-dialect of Hasidic Yiddish of Satmer Hassidim in the USA, and according to Yivo's rules there is no problem with speaking in different forms. (I Simplifying it a bit, but that's pretty much the picture). Personally, I would be happy if they changed the rules and the study material in all academic and semi-academic institutions according to the Hasidic Yiddish dialect (not a sub-dialect of Satmer) or at least give two study tracks. And two writing options, one Hasidic Yiddish and one Yivo. The "Forverts" and "Wikipedia in Yiddish" for example, are the only ones that have adopted it and you can write there in both ways. But the sad truth is that the research on Hasidic Yiddish is still not finished and there are still no textbooks of Hasidic Yiddish so things are progressing slowly. But as mentioned, I do not represent the opinion of the League for Yiddish, but my personal opinion.
@@elibenedict4858 Thank you so much for your answer. It helped clear up some misconceptions I had and makes me aware that the topic is more complex than I imagined.
זייער באלערנדיק, א דאנק!
Eli,
איך וויל ביי אייך פרעגן א קשיא וועגן יידישע דיאלעקטן.
What dialect of Yiddish did you grow up using in B'nei B'rak?
Is it difficult for you to use YIVO Yiddish?
Which dialect do you use in your private life?
Which dialect does Yiddish League for Yiddish promote?
Everyone learning Yiddish in academic or non-religious settings was learning YIVO Yiddish.
Today many argue that it is the New York Hungarian Hasidim who are continuing Yiddish as an everyday spoken Yiddish and we should speak as they do. This is seen in Duolingo. The Yiddish socialists with their day schools and summer camps have not continued. The new generations of many religious Jews, historically Litvak Yiddish speaking, do not continue with Yiddish as an everyday language. So it seems that YIVO Yiddish is in an ivory tower, divorced from everyday life. My little bit of Yiddish was picked up from my Lithuanian born grandparents so YIVO Yiddish sounds familiar and correct to me. I admit that Satmar Yiddish sounds strange but I am wondering if I should make an effort to know that dialect. The internet now has so many examples of Satmar Yiddish.
Many people say that it is no big deal switching dialects, just some vowel shifts. But the whole rhythm is often different, it is almost another language. I felt vindicated when I read "In Brooklyn, Ehrlich was separated from his Hasidic neighbors by his northerly Hasidic heritage (from the Karlin-Stolin group)... People also had a hard time understanding his different Yiddish dialect, which led to the first publications of his work: Pamphlets printed so that audiences-often children-could follow along to his cassettes."
Oh! It takes a lot of text to answer everything. I'll try to keep it short (maybe I'll make a chapter about it sometime in the future).
Among the Hassidim, they have one large dialect called Hasidic Yiddish which is different from all historical dialects as well as from Yivo Yiddish, with different grammar, different vocabulary, and different syntax. And within the great dialect "Hasidic Yiddish" there are many sub-dialects, usually it is divided according to belonging to Hasidic communities and not by geographical area. Besides, there is also the matter of the accent that this is an unrelated issue and it is indeed affected by the geographical area. This is an important topic! Because many people and researchers are not precise: 1. Global Hasidic Yiddish is mainly the syntax, the vocabulary, the grammar, and then there are slight differences in all areas according to communities, and the accent is not the main division!. 2. Satmer represent nothing but their own sub-dialect.
I grew up as a child with 3 main dialects: Hassidic-Lithuanian (I was in the Karlin-Stolin community and my father spoke it). Hasidic-Romanian/Hungarian-Israeli, (my mother and her family belong to the Vizhnitz community). And I studied at a school and yeshiva from Galicia: Bobov, Belz. I had friends who spoke different types, so I speak at least 4 types of Yiddish at a native level. And so automatically, without noticing, I switch to the dialect that the speaker in front of me speaks to me. If the speaker is inconsistent or a new learner who does not have a clear dialect. So I zigzag between the dialects. The most dominant dialect for me is my mother's, in this dialect I dream and think and of course I also have an Israeli accent even though I only started to understand modern Hebrew at about the age of 9 and speak fluently at the age of 11 maybe. And before that I studied Ashkenazi Hebrew and Aramaic.
I would like to correct a common mistake you cite: the Hasidic community does not speak Hungarian Yiddish! There are many groups including Romanians, Russians and more, and in any case even those coming from Hungary are all subject to the rules of the Hasidic Yiddish dialect that was created after the Holocaust, and not to the Yiddish that was spoken in historical Hungary.
Another common misconception is that there is a 'correct' form of speech according to Yivo, this is not true as far as I know. All the rules created by them in the 1930s are only for writing and not for speaking. They believed that everyone could speak according to their own dialect but everyone should write uniformly according to the rules. These are also the rules and Yiddish that the League for Yiddish promotes. And so the story with Duolingo is also not true, because Duolingo adopted all the writing rules according to Yivo and only sound recordings of the words and sentences are according to the sub-dialect of Hasidic Yiddish of Satmer Hassidim in the USA, and according to Yivo's rules there is no problem with speaking in different forms. (I Simplifying it a bit, but that's pretty much the picture).
Personally, I would be happy if they changed the rules and the study material in all academic and semi-academic institutions according to the Hasidic Yiddish dialect (not a sub-dialect of Satmer) or at least give two study tracks. And two writing options, one Hasidic Yiddish and one Yivo. The "Forverts" and "Wikipedia in Yiddish" for example, are the only ones that have adopted it and you can write there in both ways. But the sad truth is that the research on Hasidic Yiddish is still not finished and there are still no textbooks of Hasidic Yiddish so things are progressing slowly. But as mentioned, I do not represent the opinion of the League for Yiddish, but my personal opinion.
@@elibenedict4858 Thank you so much for your answer. It helped clear up some misconceptions I had and makes me aware that the topic is more complex than I imagined.
אלי, איך האב זייער ליב דיין פליסיקן יידיש
פליסיגען , מוט א "ג", נישט א "ק"